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Bob's Lifted Wagon

So, I got a wild hair the other night. I was looking at the kids Radio Flyer toy wagon... And I look over at this pile of ATV tires... back over at the wagon, back over to the tires again, look out at my lifted Superduty... look back at the wagon, and then over to the tires again... Pretty soon, I'm remembering this scraped out ATV in the junk pile...
This project was 4 days, start to finish (paint and all). I Got the wild hair last Monday night that I could have this done for our car show this weekend. I start the mockup, and get with my paint shop buddy and tell him I'm gonna drop off some stuff on Friday morning that I need to have painted and back in hand by Friday night. SO I now have Monday night to Thursday night afterwork to get this designed and built and out to paint.

All I know is that I wanted it lifted, atv tires, 4 wheel independent suspension and 4 wheel steering, and it had to be durable, I want kids to be able to play with it, and my rod buddies to give their kids rides, now and then. And have fun at car shows with it, to match my lifted truck.

Anyway, here it is, start to finish, 4 days, after work in the garage.

First picture, My F250 on 40's. Picture is kind of deceiving, for a daily driver truck, this thing is VERY big. Not freaky big, but BIG. It looks proportional in the pics, and you don't get a sense of size out of it.

The wagon goes with THIS truck, so let's start with one pic of the truck, and get to the wagon build.

I wanted this to be my first TIG project, and I did TIG about 99% of it. I ended up having to do some tack welds with the MIG, as I haven't mastered laying on the floor and holding many things together and running the foot pedal with my elbow . Plus, lots of use of magnets to hold small parts together for a quick tack. TIG hates magnets.

You can see the front and rear suspension mounts, the handle mounts and all the linkage for the 4 wheel steering.

I really wanted a SERIOUS lifted look and some pleasing shapes (not just the easy to do square shapes). So, I roll bent a piece of 1.5" square stock to resemble a leaf spring, and that's the main chassis and top mount shown in a few of these pics.

Front shocks and mounts, top and bottom, are made and tack'd into position.

Rear shocks and mounts are made and tacked into position. I didn't like the look of the ATV shocks mounted on the lower suspension arms, so I eventually ground off those mounts, and made new mounts on the upper arms. Made it look more like a TRUCK, and I stood them up with less angle, and that helped the look too.

Also extra bracing and welding on the center of the main "leaf".

Got the handle and linkage on, finished up some loose ends.

Photo of just the finished frame... MAN, that was a brain twister and a lot of little parts to cut and fit. The steering was murder, but came out perfect.

At this point, it's painted, and re-assembled, and done. It's about 3am friday night. Turns out I'm short one steering ball joint, and some DUFUS, that worked at the salvage place I bought some lower arms from, hammered the lower ball joints and I had to use some spare stock ones I had laying around (but sadly I didn't know this until AFTER they were painted). I actually have about 5 complete front ends, and just robbed another set of arms. I took the easy way out and just sent cleaner (less dented) arms to the painter, not the ones I mocked up on the front... 'DOH....

To finalize. I need to get new front lower arms painted and installed, install one steering ball joint, get the springs all powdercoated a fresh white color, and have the tie-rods chromed. And she's done.

Turns out, the car show got rained out... Ain't that just peachy. Well, the wagon was done enough to take down there for a show. and I hit my build time mark and that was kind of important to me.

Going to build a cool chrome roll bar with lights for it some time in the next week.

Not perfect, but fun, and perhaps it will inspire some of you, as your projects inspire me. :0)

Nice job...........needs some big lights
and upswept exaust on each side.......cd player.......lcd moniters.....and a beautiful blonde with big............................enthusiam for the sport. Whew!

thats realy cool. must be nice to have all them extra parts laying around. nice choice of useage for them now make one to match the oldie roadster in the background too.
i wonder how expensive it would be to buy all th parts to make one. the tires alone are like $50 a pop ok so i cant aford it but that dosent make it any less cool, you can send it out my way when you are bored with it and decide to make a new one.

thanks for the help
......or..........
hope i helped feel free to shoot me an e-mail direct i have time to chat.james@newyorkmetalart.comsummer is here, plant a tree. if you don't have space or time to plant one sponsor some one else to plant one for you. a tree is an investment in our planet, help it out.
JAMES